Traveling the Blue Road

Interior image Interior image Interior image

Lee Bennett Hopkins, Bob and Jovan Hansman

A 2018 Notable Poetry Book for Children (National Council of Teachers of English)

Selected for Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2018 by NCSS-CBC, a cooperative project of the National Council for the Social Studies and the Children’s Book Council

Traveling the Blue Road is a carefully curated collection of kid-friendly poetry about the ever inspiring subject of the ocean. Themes include pilgrimages, migration, culture, and more.

Prepare to be inspired by the sea with Traveling the Blue Road. This book is packed with gorgeous illustrations that surround a collection of poetry for children on the themes of the courage, beauty, and promise of sea voyages.

Compiled and edited by award-winning poet Lee Bennett Hopkins, the poems describe how the sea has historically shone as a metaphor for both hope and despair, and served as a pathway for people searching for new life. Traveling the Blue Road includes poems about the pilgrims coming to the New World, the Mariel boatlift, the Vietnamese boat people, a Dutch slave ship, the current migration situation in the Mediterranean, and the voyage of the St. Louis.

Contributing poets include Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Paul B. Janeczko, J. Patrick Lewis, Allan Wolf, Marilyn Nelson, Denver Butson, Georgia Heard, Jane Yolen, Naomi Shihab Nye, and G. Neri, and Margarita Engle, the recently named Young People's Poet Laureate.

Named one of Bank Street College of Education's Best Children's Books of the Year, 2018!

PRICE: $17.95 / Can$22.95 / £11.99

MEDIUM:

FORMAT: Hardback

ISBN: 9781633222762

SIZE: 9 in x 11.25in / 228.6mm x 285.75 mm

PUBLISHED: October 17, 2017

Lee Bennett Hopkins has compiled more anthologies for children than anyone in the history of children's literature. In 2011, Lee Bennett Hopkins was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's most prolific anthologist of poetry for children, with 113 titles to his credit! He has helped make poetry accessible to young readers in more than 100 volumes of his own writings and compilations. He has won numerous awards including five American Library Association Notable Books, the Mississippi Medallion for "lasting contributions to children's literature," National Council of Teachers of English Excellence in Poetry for Children Award (2009), and a Christopher Award for "affirming the highest values of the human spirit."

Bob Hansman and Jovan Hansman met in the summer of 1994, when Bob was 47 and Jovan was 13. Bob volunteered to teach a summer art program in Clinton-Peabody public housing, one of the most concentrated areas of poverty and violence in St. Louis, MO. After the death of one of the boys -- who was Jovan’s best friend and Bob’s peace-maker and favorite student -- Jovan asked to move in with Bob, and Bob was asked by one of the moms to move into the projects. In time, Bob adopted Jovan, and Jovan grew up to become co-director, with his father, of the program he had been in as a young boy. Between the two of them, they have won a Rosa L. Parks Memorial Award, a FOCUS St. Louis What’s Right With The Region! Award, a Dred Scott Freedom Award, and a Missouri Arts Award, and more. They have done many public service art projects in the community, but this is their first book together.